We talked about Peer to Patent, Watson on Jeopardy, where the Supreme Court is heading with patent law, the usual fun questions to get to know Schecter on a personal level and more. As we moved into the “fun stuff” you will learn that one famous IBM invention was tested out in the early stages by the inventors on a Thanksgiving turkey one year, proving that innovation never takes a holiday! We also learn that Schecter is something of a James Bond fan, and selected one recent Academy Award winning film as his favorite movie.

In other words, simply making a sale does not mean you are marketing your products and services effectively. Effective marketing is the process by which you promote your firm through the sharing of information with prospective clients about what you have to offer, with the ultimate goal being that a sale is made. Without an effective marketing strategy, you are far less likely to facilitate the sale.

The ACLU lead plaintiffs have a real predicament relative to standing. It does not sound as if the Federal Circuit believed any single plaintiff could satisfy both prongs required to bring a Declaratory Judgment Action, and rather were trying to say we have some plaintiffs with first prong evidence and some with second prong evidence. Simply put, that dog doesn’t hunt, at least not under current law relative to standing. Thus, there seems a real chance that the entire case could be thrown out because no plaintiff has standing.

The conundrum created by the Federal Circuit’s joint infringement doctrine and its impact on protecting interactive computer-based technologies got worse last week with McKesson Technologies, Inc. v. Epic Systems Corp. McKesson Technologies involved a patented interactive electronic method for communicating between healthcare providers and patients about personalized web pages for doctors. Judge Linn’s majority opinion (and a “thin” at majority at that) ruled that, because the initial step of the patented method was performed by the patient while the remaining steps were performed by the software provided by the healthcare provider, there was no infringement, direct, indirect, joint or otherwise of the patented method.

Hungar would go on to say that the clear and convincing standard “makes no sense,” which nearly immediately drew the first comment from the bench with Justice Ginsburg saying that it would be difficult to say the standard makes no sense when it was supported by Justice Cardozo and Judge Rich. Ginsberg would later, in a nearly annoyed way, say “then you have to be saying that Judge Rich got it wrong…” Hungar cut off Justice Ginsburg, not typically a wise move.

On April 4, 2011, I had the honor to interview Manny Schecter, the Chief Patent Counsel for IBM Corporation. I met Manny in October 2010 when I did a CLE presentation at IBM’s offices in Armonk, New York. Since that time I have worked to schedule a time to chat with him on the record, and we were recently able to coordinate and chatted on the record for approximately 60 minutes. During our conversation we talked about numerous topics, including patent reform, Microsoft v. i4i, Patent Office initiatives such as the Three Track initiative and Peer to Patent. We also discussed David Kappos, his former boss, as well as Watson’s Jeopardy triumph, the new IBM IP blog and the usual fun questions.

Effective April 12, 2011, the USPTO has dramatically updated the patent bar examination. As a result, the PLI Patent Bar Review Course has been completely updated – overhauled really. We had already been working on updates to our materials based on the inevitable change in the exam moving from MPEP Rev. 4 to MPEP Rev. 8. We knew it was only a matter of time before a new revision of the MPEP was tested, so we have had MPEP Rev. 8 materials at the ready. The text and questions have been completely revised and our lectures re-done. We feel confident the PLI patent bar review course is simply the best!

Method or process claims will include active steps to achieve a certain result. In method claims the transition is typically either “comprising” or “comprising the steps of.” While legally there may be some distinction between these two different transitions, both are acceptable. It is also important to understand that each of the steps in a method or process claims use gerunds, which are a form of a verb that ends in “ing” and operates to direct the action that is to take place. Said another way, you must use “ing” words in method claims. You cannot define a method or process in the past tense.

At an all-day session on April 14, members of the Committee gave serious consideration to a variety of amendments to the bill and concluded with an overwhelming, bi-partisan vote of 32-3 in support of the long-overdue improvements to the patent law. The Committee proceeding demonstrated the careful balancing of interests and the compromises necessary to address the concerns of the diverse stakeholders. While more work is yet to be done, the Committee’s effort represents encouraging progress.

BIO has consistently praised House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) for his introduction of a comprehensive patent reform bill similar to the bill adopted by the U.S. Senate earlier this month by a nearly unanimous vote. Unfortunately, given the addition of the Goodlatte supplemental examination amendment, added to the bill during Committee consideration, we have no choice but to oppose floor consideration of the bill until this issue is repaired.

In the situation where there is a joint research collaboration everything is fine, people are happy and hope springs eternal right up until that moment when everything falls apart. Then you have issues associated with a law firm representing inventors of a joint collaboration might be conflicted out of the representation altogether because downstream patent applications filed by one or more of the collaborators creates a situation where the collaborators no longer have jointly aligned interests, perhaps as the result of double patenting issues. Ware explained several cases arising out of a common set of facts whereby multiple joint collaborators were not consulted on the filing of a joint application (or at least not enough to their liking), which created a double patenting issue for an after filed application. The law firm representing the collective was sued for malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty; the case settled.

Richard M. Marsh, Executive Vice President and General Counsel for Myriad Genetics is on the panel. He started off his presentation explaining that he really wants to talk about the case and the issues, but given that the case is ongoing and the future is uncertain regarding whether it will continue to be appealed, go back to trial or be dismissed altogether he might be unable to answer all questions. He did say clearly that the biotechnology industry “is under attack.” Marsh explained that the industry needs to be proactive because “if we sit back and idly do nothing there could be grave consequences.” Marsh explained that Myriad was able to do what it did thanks to the patents by giving it the time, money and incentive to innovate. I couldn’t agree with him more.

This morning the first panel discussion is focusing on Stanford v. Roche, titled Who’s Rights Are They Anyway? The first speaker, Maggie Shafmaster, Ph.D., Vice President and Chief Patent Counsel, Genzyme Corporation, lead off by pointing out something that everyone largely seems to agree with, namely that the facts of the case are still largely in dispute, which makes me wonder why would the Supreme Court take such a case. Be that as it may, Shafmaster went on to say that this case is one that makes in-house attorneys and those representing Universities lay awake at night. She characterized the case as “an academic/industry collaboration gone wrong.” And we are off to the races!

In my view, both the majority opinion, as well as Judge Dyk’s dissent, miss the real “written description” problem in Crown Packaging which has nothing to do with whether the common patent specification illustrates both solutions to the prior art problem. Instead, it relates to the follow description (see column 1, line 62 to column 2, line 5 of the ‘826 patent) at the end of the sentence stating how the claimed invention solved the problem of using less metal in the can end: “characterized [or “characterised” depending on which version of the ‘826 patent you use] in that, the chuck wall is inclined to an axis perpendicular to the exterior of the central panel at an angle between 30o and 60o and the concave [i.e., the reinforcing] bead narrower than 1.5 mm (0.060”).”

H.R. 1473, the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011, is the legislation reflecting the compromise on the Continuing Resolution to fund the government for fiscal 2011. The letters point out that the provisions of the bill related to the USPTO appropriate $100 million less than the projected user fee revenues to be collected, essentially diverting that money to other government programs.